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Paramaribo, Suriname

Paramaribo has always been a place I’ve aspired to visit ever since I became interested in languages. It’s the only city and general population centre of sparsely-populated Suriname (pop. 550000), the only official Dutch-speaking independent nation in the Americas, but one that speaks a bunch of everything else.

With a population even more mixed up than Guyana, while all signage is in Dutch, Sranan Tongo (Surinamese) is the general lingua franca of the country, their confounding creole of English, Portuguese, Dutch, and various West African languages. It’s so weird to see Chinese people speaking amongst themselves in Sranan! Speaking of which, other languages I’ve heard commonly are Cantonese, Mandarin, Javanese, Hindi, Portuguese, and of course English, passably spoken by most of the population. Add in the beautiful Caribbean Dutch architecture, and my heart’s already stolen. This place is almost criminally underlooked — the only other tourists I see are all Dutch, and there are few English resources about places to visit in the country!

But speaking of criminal… There’s some sort of nefarious current here. You don’t need to know any of these myriad languages to feel it, but it sure makes it more obvious.Continue reading →

Georgetown, Guyana

“Where?”

Prior to arriving in Guyana, that’s the most common response I’ve gotten when asked about this trip. The Ecuadorians sitting next to me on one of my flights had never even heard of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, let alone known that they exist on their continent, just a hop and skip away. (“It’s next to Venezuela.” “Colombia?” “Other side.” “Brazil?” “No, east.” “…Brazil?”) My mom thought I was going to Peru. My Couchsurfing host, Gordon, mentions people mistaking Guyana for Ghana. No one at the airports, not even me until I asked my host for once and for all, seems to know how to pronounce it right. Ghee-ana? Gooey-ana? Guay-ana? I heard all three. (It’s guy-ana, the “guy” as in “you guys”. I only heard that for the first time in Guyana.)

To make matters worse, Guyana doesn’t really have a reputation of its own internationally. It certainly has a reputation though, just not of its own making. Take Jonestown, the incident that literally invented the phrase “drinking the Kool-aid”, after an American cult leader brought his followers to establish their own “utopia” in the Guyanese hinterlands, then ordered them to all commit suicide by kool-aid after he went crazy. Or take the mini refugee crisis, or the territorial dispute extending to half of Guyana, or the recent offshore oil dispute, all courtesy of neighbouring Venezuela.

So arriving in Guyana, having no mental picture of what the place looked like, what have I found?Continue reading →

Iqaluit, Nunavut

Nunavut is the size of Western Europe or all of Mexico, comprising 20% of Canada’s landmass. A statistic like this would typically suggest millions of people, heavy attention on the world stage, and significant development.

But we’re not talking typical here. There are no roads into Nunavut, nor are there roads between any of the 25 communities that make up its town-like population of 35,000 (<0.1% of Canada). Majority Inuit, proudly part of Canada yet largely disconnected from the national conversation, it feels like a different country. Maybe even a different planet: the landscape looks like Mars. No amount of Canadian flags, Tim Hortons, or TVs playing “southern” content can change that. Up here, people pay attention to what’s going on down south, but I can’t say that many of us down south do the same for the north. I found myself needing constant reminders that I hadn’t left the country, even with the words “us foreigners” once slipping out of my mouth. It’s hard to absorb how drastically different Canada can be from coast to coast to coast.Continue reading →

Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

It’s a lonely, loud propeller plane ride from southern Canada up to Yellowknife. The cities disappear, the Rockies, the roads, the farms and plains of Alberta, and then… no signs of civilisation. You see the familiar Canadian Shield out of the window: bedrock, bogs, short trees, and a million lakes. Like a random map generator, it’s endless permutations of taiga (or boreal forest if you prefer). Then all of a sudden, Yellowknife.

Despite being so far west, in terms of travelling east, Yellowknife is basically it. It’s the easternmost territorial city connected by road to the rest of Canada. (Never mind the fact that across Canada’s three territories, only their capitals are cities, and they’re all pretty small! Yellowknife’s just under 20,000 people, containing roughly half of NWT’s population.) Other tiny settlements east are accessible by ice road in the winter, but the summer? Good luck with that.

Vancouver, British Columbia

One year on since officially returning to Vancouver, it still feels like I just returned mere weeks ago. While I’ve fondly been looking back at the last two years on the road, I’m quite happy to stay put, and having experienced everything I hoped for and more out of my sabbatical, the transition back to a non-travel life hasn’t been hard at all. It’s nice to feel like a normal person again rather than the visitor in town, and I’m enjoying the simple things — seeing the same people regularly, being able to follow TV shows, cook, try out restaurants around town, check out live music, or even just do nothing at all. It’s even nice to hold a regular job again, though of course I lament the loss of free time and spontaneity. That’s probably the only “hard” part.

I can’t even figure out where I want to go next, or when. But you know… here’s not so bad at all.Continue reading →

Oaxaca de Juárez and Puerto Escondido, Mexico

Music rings from every street corner. The streets and plazas are alive with conversation and activity. Colour adorns every building, whether by paint or by nearby blooming trees or by street art. And in the background, mountains.

This is not what I expected from the state of Oaxaca, a place that’s forever been on my radar as a food destination. We’ll get to that point later, but this was literally the reason I came, and the only thing I knew. But food is only one facet of what Oaxaca really is — a shining showcase of every facet of culture in this state, one which holds on strongly to its traditions yet embraces new ideas.

There’s an immediate difference if you compare Oaxaca de Juárez (the state capital, also called Oaxaca for short) to Mexico City. Gone are all the skyscrapers or any semblance of a modern metropolis: brightly painted colonial-era buildings line streets of brick and vibrant cathedral-centered plazas. It’s a bit of a time warp. Oaxaca’s zócalo is the big hub of activity, packed with crowds under the shade of its many trees, doing everything from chatting to shining shoes to people-watching to idly strumming a guitar to enjoying whatever roaming live entertainment comes their way. Surrounding it all are snack vendors and sidewalk cafes. It’s just a thoroughly pleasant place to kill time, closely followed by the plaza surrounding the Santo Domingo cathedral, just a short walk away past a Semana Santa-special artisan’s market.Continue reading →

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, a metro area of over 20 million, is one of the largest in the world. Packed to the max with traffic above ground and like sardines down below in the expansive metro (complete with unique identifying icons for each station!), it unexpectedly brings to mind other disparate megapolises: New York population-wise (and the Bronx and Queens demographically speaking), Tehran in density, and even London based on the sheer number of museums and cultural institutions out there.

Just when I thought I was done (which, you may recall, was first December, then February), I had to squeeze another trip in. Upon signing a new job contract, I impulsively booked a flight leaving the next day, scrambling to figure out how to make the most of my remaining sabbatical. This meant the least amount of preparation and planning I’ve ever done for a trip. Usually it’s not much at all, but this time I’m really flying blind. And everything in the first paragraph was literally stuff I just learned and perceived upon landing. It’s about time I found out what I’ve been missing all these years, as our close neighbour!Continue reading →

Tainan, Kenting, and Hualien, Taiwan 臺南、墾丁、花蓮

With Taipei’s treats capturing so much of my attention, I was left with just one week to circle the rest of the island.

Where Taipei looks forward with modern trends, Tainan looks back to history and tradition, as the oldest city in Taiwan. On the streets, I hear far more Taiwanese than I do Mandarin. And as if Taipei didn’t have enough temples, well… Tainan’s chock full of them, and each of them are chock full of people. Tradition isn’t something just for the old though.Continue reading →

Taipei, Taiwan 臺北

I said I was done with travelling for the time being. Turns out sometimes trips just happen, and a bunch of factors led me to say goodbye to home again, but just for three weeks. (There is an end!) Being in Hong Kong for a wedding meant a short hop over to Taiwan, a nation (for lack of a better word… we’ll get to that later) I’ve been to around 20 years ago, but only remember of it a hotel room shared with my family and a hospital: I was sick the entire time. Never saw anything else other than some traffic, but never felt curious enough to return either.

What was I thinking?!

Amongst the hordes of Hong Kong tourists I encountered (and eavesdropped on) throughout Taiwan, there’s one primary thing on the minds of visitors. I count myself in that crowd, and certainly didn’t have to hear it from them: it’s the food.

Final stretch

Now firmly in Europe and no longer on the Silk Road, I was completely caught off guard by how sudden the changes would be. After being close to alone for so long, I was now surrounded by tourists. Everyone can speak English. Fancy mosques are replaced by fancy churches, and all the buildings — spires, statues, windows, paint — exude Europe. Crowded streets of hodge-podge clothing stores give way to wide streets of high fashion. Instead of small businesses’ neon signs fighting for attention, it’s billboard-sized screens. Pop culture, advertisements, posters depicting people of a far more diverse spectrum of skin colours and subcultures both mainstream and niche, promoting individuality, but also frequently flaunting flashier things, wearing less clothes, trying too hard. And no more marshrutkas, dolmuş, or minivans: it’s all trams. For better or for worse, I was very much back in the Western world again.

I’m satisfied that this is the end of my trip, and though I passed through some stunning locales most people would go out of their way just to see, I have to admit that my focus wasn’t all there anymore. My planning only took me up to Istanbul, and the places thereafter — all of which warrant another future visit — were really a bit of an afterthought: all I wanted to do was to see my friends.